


Take Two

by Hello_Spikey



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Gen, Souled Spike (BtVS)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-25
Updated: 2007-10-25
Packaged: 2019-06-11 04:23:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15307419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hello_Spikey/pseuds/Hello_Spikey
Summary: Buffy asks Angel to try to get newly souled Spike out of the school basement.





	Take Two

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this after watching the beginning of Season Seven of Buffy. I had still not yet seen a single episode of Angel. But I so wanted the boys to talk about this soul thing! And I wanted desperately to get Spikey out of the damn basement! So I wrote this. It's not a complete story, really, and I even made it somewhat Spangelus! (There's, um, hints and allegations.)

A figure huddled against a wall, tucked behind storage boxes, one hand gripped hard in his own hair, the other hugging his knees against himself. A figure mostly in shadow, all but the pale shock of his hair.

Angel turned to Buffy, hand outstretched to keep her back.

“Yes,” Buffy said, grimacing, “that’s him.”

Suddenly, crystal blue eyes snatched up to glare at them. “It’s not like I don’t know,” Spike said. “I know you’re not here. You’re not real. Say whatever the buggering hell you want it won’t affect me. You aren’t real.”

“Spike,” Buffy sidestepped Angel as he tried to hold her back. She knelt beside the confused vampire and reached out to him. “Spike, I’m here. I’m really here. It’s Buffy.”

Spike winced, pulling away from her grasp.

Angel closed his eyes. “This isn’t right. I shouldn’t see him like this.”

Buffy turned to face Angel. “You have to help him. Angel, you’re the only one I know who’s known him longer than I have. Well, who isn’t evil. Please. See if you can get him out of this basement. Because I’ve tried and I can’t.”

Angel made a pained grimace and took a step forward. He looked to Buffy in a moment of silent pleading, then, resignedly, squatted down beside her. “William,” he said.

Spike’s eyes narrowed at him. “Not here,” he said. “Think I don’t know sodding Angelus wouldn’t come here?”

Angel sighed, shrugged, and made to stand. Buffy’s hand was hard on his elbow. He sighed again. “I’m here. And it’s ‘Angel’ now. Not Angelus. Get up. I’m taking you home.”

There was a tiny flicker of recognition, a sudden lucidity to Spike’s face. He blinked. “Why?”

Angel looked to Buffy again, and gently nudged her back, which Buffy did, obligingly though confused. Then Angel reached back and smacked Spike, hard, across the face.

“Angel!” Buffy exclaimed.

Angel grabbed Spike by his shirt and hauled him to his feet, “Because I’m your SIRE. Now move!”

Numbly, Spike nodded, and walked forward as Angel pushed him.

Buffy jerked Angel back to glare at him. “That was your plan? That’s reaching out to him?”

“I knew it would work,” Angel said. He turned and glared at Spike. “Keep walking,” he said. Up. Out of here.”

“I don’t think smacking him around is therapy,” Buffy hissed, hurrying to keep up with the long-legged vampires.

“Then you should have called a therapist,” Angel said.

“You’re all I could call. Angel, listen. He offered to…” Buffy bit her lip. She’d carefully NOT told Angel anything about her and Spike, aside from his having been reluctantly good under the control of the initiative’s chip. “When I saw him last, he acted like he’d do anything I wanted him to. There was this… surrender. I don’t think it’s something we should encourage. It was creepy.”

“I’m his sire. That might be the only thing he can understand right now.”

“What does that mean, exactly, that sire business?”

“He’s subordinate to me,” Angel said. “In my family. I made Drusilla. Drusilla made him. The blood… it knows its own.”

Buffy pressed her fists into her hips. “Hello? Vampire slayer here. I know what ‘sire’ means. But what does it mean? Do you really have control over him? Or is it just an authority thing?”

Angel smirked. “Spike. Listening to authority.”

“So it’s a magical control thingie?”

“I don’t know. There isn’t a handbook. But I do know one thing, Buffy. It took all I had to hurt Darla. You just… you know your sire.”

Spike led them all this time, silent, up the stairs, down the clean new corridors of the school, out the front doors. To their surprise, he stopped, stretched his arms and glanced up at the stars a moment, then turned to face them with almost, but not quite, his old smirk.

Angel gestured toward his car, alone in the parking lot.

Spike ran both his hands through his hair and nodded, setting off for the car as though walking into battle.

“I’ll take him to a motel,” Angel said. “I’ll call you when we’re settled.”

“I’m coming with,” Buffy said.

“No.” Angel sighed. “No. We’ll drop you off at your place. I just… if what you say is true…”

“I know it is. You didn’t see him in the church. He has a soul.”

“If it’s true, and he’s going through something like I went through, familiar places or faces won’t be a consolation. It’ll be torment.”

“And you aren’t familiar? Cutting a swath through Europe ring a bell?”

Angel sighed, his shoulders drooping. “Do you want me to do this, Buffy? For you? What if he’s faking?”

“He isn’t.”

“What if he’s just plain mad?”

Buffy shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ll stake him, I guess.” She turned her most firm glare on Angel. “Me. My decision.”

Angel felt his back teeth grinding. “Give me tonight,” he said. “To see if I can reach him.”

Spike sat in the passenger seat, as languid as ever, one knee propped up against the dashboard, though he stared at nothing at all. A very un-Spike expression.

Angel turned the key. “Put on your seat belt,” he said.

Spike rewarded him with a glance, a frown, and then went back to staring out the window.

Angel sighed. At least there was a hint of the vampire he knew.

“So,” he said, grimacing at how flat the words sounded, “how long has it been? I mean, since...”

“Don’t know,” Spike said, lips barely moving.

“He disappeared about two months ago,” Buffy said.

Spike winced at the sound of her voice, starting looking about anxiously, as though she would materialize outside the window or in the steering column. He calmed when he saw her in the rear-view. If straightening a bit and pulling himself closer to the door could be called calm.

“How?” Angel glanced quickly over at Spike, who was looking likely to crawl right out of the car window. “How did you get it back? Who did it to you? Was it Willow? Did she curse you? What did you do to piss her off?”

Spike gave Angel a look that could be best described as offended. “Saw a man about a girl,” he said.

“He said he did it for me,” Buffy said, wringing her hands, leaning forward in the seat. “I’d told him I couldn’t… I told him he had to have a soul. Angel, don’t ask him about that, okay?”

Angel’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. He pulled up in front of Buffy’s home. He jammed the car into park and got out of his seat.

Buffy almost slunk back as he opened the door for her. But she took his hand and looked anxiously from him to Spike. “He might say things… that aren’t true, Angel. He might have made up this whole story about him and me and… did I tell you about the buffybot?”

Spike pressed his laced fingers against his mouth and stared at the rear-view mirror as though he could see his reflection there.

Angel kissed Buffy on the forehead and ran his hands over her shoulders. “It’ll be okay,” he said. “How about I come back here after we talk? Spend the day with you?”

“You’ll leave him alone?”

“I’ll make sure he’s secured.”

Buffy frowned. “Maybe this isn’t a good idea. Why don’t you both just come in… we’ll…”

“Still secret, innit?” Spike said, leaning to the window. “Worried he’ll believe a word I say?”

Buffy blushed deeply and turned away from Angel’s confused expression. “Right. Call me before you… when you’re coming back. Don’t get caught in the sun.”

Angel smiled. “I’ll take care of myself.” He leaned down to kiss her, but Buffy pulled away, looking back at Spike anxiously before she turned to receive Angel’s lips, briefly, on her own.

Angel settled back into the driver’s seat with a confused frown.

“It’s nothing,” Spike said. “Between me ‘n her. She loves you. Could never love me. Never.”

Angel was too angry to speak. He pulled the gearshift almost too hard for the car’s abused transmission and it lurched out into the street.

Spike chuckled. “I can still piss you off, Angelus. Must not be as barmy as I thought.”

Angel ground his teeth, glaring at the road as though he could will it to end. “No one said there was anything between you.”

“I love her,” Spike said. “Always falling in love with your old girl-friends, aren’t I, Angelus? Mighty decent how you keep abandoning ‘em for me.”

The car screeched to a stop and Spike tumbled against the dashboard, smacking his head on the windshield in a satisfactory way. Angel felt the hard line of his seatbelt and forced himself to shift the car back into low gear. “Seatbelt,” he growled.

Spike laughed, a raw, humorless, unhinged laugh.

It could be worse, Angel reminded himself; he could be trying to kill me.

No, he amended, turning into the parking lot of the “Slumber Inn” motel; that would be better. Spike trying to kill him was something he understood.

This Spike, with his humorless laugh that choked off in gasps like a sob, who followed passively as Angel purchased a room and then led him to it, this was not something Angel could understand.

But what had he been like, he wondered, those horrid first years, after the guilt came crashing down? Angel frowned deeply at a blank face that looked so very like that of a London gentleman killed over a century ago.

The motel room smelled of mildew, tobacco, and stale, forgotten sex. Angel threw the key onto the bedside table and busied himself locking, bolting the door and drawing the curtains tight. He turned to find Spike peering into the mirror over the dresser, a mirror that showed an empty room. He touched the glass delicately and shook his head.

“William,” Angel said, knowing Spike’s original name would call him back. “Sit. We have to talk.”

Spike turned only briefly to glance at Angel, who stood, expectantly, next to the room’s only chair. “You going to kill me, Angelus?”

“Not just this moment.”

“I think I’d like it if you did. Haven’t the balls to do myself in. Tried. Just couldn’t do it.”

“Yeah. I couldn’t do it, either.” Angel sat down himself. “Would you stop that? The soul doesn’t come with a reflection. My god, you are vain.”

“Not vain,” Spike said. He petted the mirror one last time and turned to face Angel. “Just prettier than you, mate.”

“Yeah. So fucking pretty I gotta live with this motel clerk thinking you’re my hooker.”

Spike sprawled on the bed with a lazy leer. “Whatever Angelus wants,” he said.

“Please. You’re not that pretty.” Angel took off his coat and sat down, thinking that it was ironically like the position of a psychiatrist next to his patient.

Spike rubbed his chest, absently, like someone might rub a hungry stomach. “Hurts,” he said. “Hurts and burns and I can feel it. Didn’t think I’d feel it so much. I thought… thought you were a poncy git. Couldn’t handle the guilt of being Angelus… well, hell, Angelus was a sadistic bugger. Monster. Me… I thought, I thought I’d been a decent sort of vampire. Killed, yeah. Killed a lot. Didn’t… didn’t think I’d feel it, like this. Like I can’t go on. Like a poncy git. Thought I had a bit of strength.”

“The pain… it gets easier,” Angel said. “With time.”

Spike rolled to face Angel, his wide blue eyes pleading. “You could make it stop. You could beat the bad out of me.”

Angel felt a twitch of horrified guilt. “I’m not Angelus anymore,” he said. “William… Spike. You have to live with it.”

“You were good at it. Making me mind.”

Angel grimaced. “You were always good at doing exactly what I didn’t want. God help me. Half the time I punished you it was for doing something halfway noble.” Angel closed his eyes, picturing blood, lines cut on smooth white skin. Lines he made, reveling in the screams, the cries. A vampire could take so much abuse and still be there the next day, ready for more. Humans were more thrilling, though, the promise of death, its permanence, hanging on them, and the heartbeat, the smell of blood and the smell of fear… it all made beating William frustrating, a cold substitute. But he’d done it. Oh, he’d done it for hours. Made up for quality with quantity. And as the younger vampire grew adept at choking back the screams, he’d grown more creative to wrest them free.

It hadn’t been a powerful guilt, those sessions, William’s cries. That wasn’t one of the memories that made Angel cringe. Why did it now? The William he remembered torturing had no more soul than a shoe. Better that he’d had a few years of tormenting a target that really deserved it. He never regretted that safe sadism. Until now, when he forced himself to open his eyes and saw his William, so much older now, so broken, lying there, pleading.

“Hurt me, sire. I tried to hurt myself, but I’m not strong enough. Hurt me. Make it stop.”

“I’m not going to punish you,” Angel said.

Spike pushed himself up to sitting. He straightened and leveled his gaze at Angel, no longer pleading. “I fucked her,” he said.

“I’m not going to punish you.”

“Buffy. Your love.” He let his mouth hang open, leering. “I shagged her into the ground.”

Angel tightened his fist until it was white. “You’re just trying to get me to hit you. I won’t.”

“Every night. For months. She kept. Coming. Back. For more. And I gave it to her. Any way she wanted. EVERY way she wanted. Want me to describe it? Her smell? Her tight, willing flesh? The way she screamed?”

This was Spike. Bullshit on the soul, Angel thought, seeing that smug head-tilt. The leering smile that stayed on after the first impact, and the second, though blood marred it. Angel pushed Spike’s neck into the bed and punched him again and again.

Then the face wasn’t smirking, wasn’t smug. Between the startled pain of each blow it was pleading. “Yes,” he said, “harder!”

Angel’s hands shook. He pushed himself back. He was on top of Spike, felt the other’s thin body… was he thinner? He felt thinner than he’d been … crushed beneath him, unresponsive, dead.

Spike licked his bloody lip. “Harder, Angelus. Don’t stop. I’m still feeling.”

Angel crawled off of Spike, let go of his throat and shook his head.

“Whatever you want, Angelus. I’ll be good this time. I’ll try to be good. I’m yours, Sire. I’m all yours. Don’t want to be mine anymore.”

Angel didn’t dare look back at the bloodied face. He walked into the bathroom and closed the door between him and Spike.

He sat on the floor, hard and cold, that was merciful. He ran his hands over his face and took a long breath. Because he wanted, very much, to be Angelus just then, to see how much pain he could wring into a willing and pliant William.

No. That’s not me. That’s the demon. That’s not who I am. I don’t get off on pain. Not anymore. Not since…

After a long silence, Angel was able to get his heart rate down, to calm the hardness inside himself, to berate himself on how easily he’d fallen prey to a half-mad vampire’s self-loathing.

He stood and washed his hands and face.

He was drying off with the rough hotel towel – do they make them out of cardboard? – when he heard a thump come from the hotel room. He fumbled the bathroom door open hastily only to find Spike stalking about the room, opening all the drawers in turn.

“What are you doing?”

Spike waved his hands. “Need a cigarette.”

“There aren’t any.”

Spike paced. “Need a bloody fag.”

“Come here, wash your face. There’s blood on it.”

“Maybe I like it bloody,” Spike muttered, checking a drawer again. He bounced a little, like getting his footing for a fight. “Let’s hit a store, eh? I’ll pay you back, when I can. Left my money somewhere. Left my everything somewhere.”

“You seem better.”

Spike ran a hand through his tousled hair, his other hand hooked in a belt loop of his jeans. “Sorry. I was… I was crazy there a bit. Sorry about that. Can we forget all of what I said since you got here and just go get a pint of blood and some smokes? Then you go back to Buffy, eh? Just don’t tell her what I said.”

Angel felt his shoulders unclench. “Yeah, we can get some blood. We’ll go to Willy’s, if you think you can handle yourself in public.”

Spike shrugged and smoothed down the front of his shirt. “Yeah. Sure. Won’t say a bleedin’ thing. Just need something to eat. Or a smoke. Either.”

“Just wash your face. I’m not taking you out of here looking like you rammed your face into the wall.”  
Spike nodded and walked to Angel. He paused, just out of reach, until Angel stepped aside to let him into the bathroom.

Angel frowned. He watched Spike fumble with the soap and turning on the water. “What happened to you?”

Spike looked back at him, blinking. “Told you already, didn’t I? Got me a soul. Slightly tarnished for lack of use.”

“So you could be like me?”

“Doesn’t have anything to do with you,” Spike muttered into the towel as he rubbed it over his face. “Got it for Buffy. ‘S what she wanted. A man with a soul. Gift with purchase.”

“This isn’t just guilt. You… you’re afraid. Something did something to you.”

Spike smoothed the bloodstained towel back on the rack. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here. I’m fine. Nobody didn’t do nothing I didn’t ask for.”

This time Spike boldly sidled past Angel, as though nothing had happened between them. Angel had to grab the room key before following him out the door.

“Let’s walk,” he said, as Spike headed to the car. Willy’s was only a block or two away and suddenly Angel didn’t want to be that enclosed again. Not with Spike liable to say or do anything.

They walked in silence most of the way. Spike said nothing and looked almost normal, if a haunted, silent Spike could be considered normal, eyes downcast, going where led.

He wore a black shirt that was worse for the wear, bloodstained and missing buttons. Angel wondered if they shouldn’t have taken a more serious pause to get him cleaned up. “Why were you in the high school basement?”

Spike scowled. That’s a Spike expression: lips pursed, brows low. “Wouldn’t believe me.”

“What, a voice told you to go there?”

“Yeah.” Spike tossed his head back. “A voice said I belonged down there. Beneath everyone.”

“That’s crazy.”

Spike raised a brow. “Where you been all night, mate? I’m fucking tripped. Full moon. Addled. Sanity has not signed up for the current engagement.”

“At least you know it,” Angel sighed, seeing the familiar – and loathed – neon sign for “Willy’s”.

Spike picked up his pace. “Wanna get in a fight,” he said. “Clears the head. Want to, Angelus? Me and you, take out the biggest demon in the place?”

“No,” Angel said, firmly, and pulled open the door to the bar.

Willy was tending bar that night himself and looked at the entering pair of vampires with his usual trepidation.

“Hey… Hi, Angel,” he said, “Spike. What can I do for you fine gentlemen? No trouble tonight, eh? Want the O neg, right? Nothing but the best!” He wrung his dishtowel.

“Bring the bottle,” Angel said, taking out his wallet.

“Good,” Willy said, “right!” He hurriedly placed a large red decanter on the bar. “Just selling drinks here, Angel. I don’t do that informant thing anymore, you know that, right?”

“We’re just here for the drinks,” Angel said. “How much?”

“And smokes,” Spike suddenly said.

Willy squinted at Spike a second. “Sure thing, Spike. Got your brand for you like always.”

Angel’s hand stopped on the money. He sighed. “Fine. Smokes. Just this once, since you’ve agreed not to start any fights.” He turned to make sure Spike caught that last bit and got a lazy shrug in response.

He was at least acting like Spike. But it was so obviously an act. Willy had even picked up on it. Angel shook his head and left a generous tip on the bar before picking up the blood and heading to one of the popular shadowed tables.

When he poured the first pair of shots, Spike looked at his like he couldn’t bring himself to drink it.

“Not thirsty?” Angel asked. “We could get some whiskey to go with it.”

Spike shook his head and threw back the shot with a grimace.

Angel sniffed his. It smelled fresh. It tasted fresh, good, whole. Definitely human. The good stuff Willy wasn’t supposed to be selling.

Oh. That was probably bad. He watched Spike’s face carefully. “It’s probably donated,” he said. “Not probably, I mean, it is. Stolen from a blood bank. You can taste the anti-coagulant.”

Angel bit his lip, knowing full well the blood was pure and untainted. Which meant probably NOT donated. When had he stopped caring so much? Was his soul tarnished, already? “You know… my soul wasn’t in very good shape when I gave it up, the first time. You know that, right? Liam, the man, was a right bastard on his own.”

Spike looked up from his glass. “I’m not going to get in a one-downsmanship contest, mate. Who’s the bigger monster? After a point, evil’s just evil.”

“You going to smoke that cigarette you just had to have? Five-fifty a pack, what are those, rolled in silk?”

“It’s my brand,” Spike said, and ripped the cellophane wrapper. “Can’t hardly get them anymore. They were big in the ‘30s, though.”

The ritual of taking out a cigarette and lighting it seemed to calm Spike. He moved, and even looked, like his old self, eyes half-closed as he drew his first drag.

Angel re-filled their glasses. “This ain’t cheap either. Drink up. You look half starved.”

“Yes, Dad.”

Angel grimaced. “Don’t call me that.”

Spike smirked. “Whatever you say, Da.”

Angel had to smile despite himself. “Same side again, aren’t we? At last.” He raised his glass.

“No fuckin’ sides,” Spike said, staring at his full glass. “God. How was I so blind stupid for a century? Angel, they take your soul out, they don’t take your brain. I knew what I was doing. How could I do it? All the things I did?”

“Same questions I ask myself, William.”

“Do you? And Drusilla. I loved her, mate, loved her till I thought I’d die from it, and now, I remember her, the things SHE did, and I’m sickened. I didn’t… didn’t think I could feel this way about her. Bloody hell, Angel, I don’t want to. I want to love her. Pity her. She was so… so pure, in her way.”

“At least you weren’t the one to drive her mad,” Angel said.

“You don’t know how often I cursed you for that.” Spike smiled sadly and slammed back his shot. When he set it down empty he said, “I wish I could have been there to see her, meet her, when she was human. When she was innocent. Me and her – the human me, I mean, an’ the human her – think we’d a gotten along?” He rotated the empty glass in his hands. “Eh, that’s rot. Poncy git I was, I wouldn’ta talked to Dru. Too common. Not b’cause I was a snob. I’da been too scared. Nancy boy, me. Not about to risk a chat with a bit o’ rough like her.” He held the glass against his temple and looked at Angel with eyes far too open.

Angel had to shift his gaze elsewhere. “I’ll get that whiskey. It’ll make me calmer and it sure as hell can’t make you any worse.”

“Don’t bet on that,” Spike muttered as Angel strode back to the bar.

Willy smiled brightly. “You’re real free with the cash tonight, Angel!”

“I’m not hurting for it,” Angel said, grimacing at the unintended irony of the statement. He WAS hurting for it, in his soul. He looked back at Spike, who was staring at his cigarette as though he’d never seen one before. My god, with all that was going on in his life, why did he let Buffy talk him into seeing to a newly helpless Spike?

“You okay?” Willy asked with genuine concern as he gathered up and counted Angel’s money.

“It’s been a day,” Angel said, rubbing a hand over his face.

“Spike bothern’ you? Because you know, if you need him kicked out of here, just give the nod.”

Angel expelled half a laugh and picked up the bottle of whiskey. “If it were that easy.”

Spike took the whiskey bottle before Angel finished setting it down and tore off its stopper with a relish usually reserved for breaking necks. His cigarette bobbed, cocked in two fingers as he poured a full shot on top of the residual blood in his glass.

“You’re welcome,” Angel said.

Angel settled back into his seat and waited for Spike to pour another shot; until he’d taken two, the younger vampire wouldn’t release his death-grip on the bottle. “We’ll finish that off and head back to the room. Get you settled in for the day. Think you can handle not walking out into the sun for a few hours while I’m at Buffy’s?”

Spike smirked.

Angel took that as a ‘maybe’ and finally wrested the bottle away to pour his own mixed blood and whiskey shot.

Since it appeared Spike had finished his long rambling, Angel bit his lip and tried to pick up the conversation again. “So,” he said, “How long? I mean, since you got… It? Was it just after the ring of Amara?”

Spike’s eyes narrowed. He stubbed out his cigarette. “Think it was May. Coulda been June. Trials lasted a bloody long time, coulda been June already by the time they gave it to me. I remember that, all of that… and getting on the plane, coming back… nothing after that, until the basement.” He fell silent and near catatonic again.

Angel shook his shoulder. “June?”

Spike nodded. “Or late May.”

“Of this year?”

Another nod.

Angel stared at Spike until the younger vampire looked away.

“Sorry, mate,” Spike said, fingering another cigarette from his pack. “For that. The pokers, chains an’ all.”

“That was three months ago.” He remembered Buffy’s words ‘he disappeared about two months ago’. “You’re telling me you’ve only had this soul for barely three months and you’re this lucid?”

Spike was having trouble with his cigarette. He fumbled it and picked it up again. “Whole business sickens me. That year, after Dru left. I went bleedin’ pathetic, desperate for anything to take her place, you know? Didn’t have a bleedin’ purpose in life without Dru. An’ I was never the torturer, mate. That’s not my thing. So… sorry. Didn’t get me the ring, anyway. Bloody pointless pain.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Me. You. Gem of Amara. Got a million people to apologize to, may as well start with the ones around to hear it. Let’s see… what else’ve I done you wrong? Oh, there was that whole sacrificing you to save Dru thing.” He leaned back. “Don’t feel sorry about that.”

“You let her torture me.”

“Yeah, well, that was for Dru. C’mon, you know I couldn’t deny her anything. And you.” He sloshed whiskey, jabbing his glass at Angel, “You were a right bastard to her.”

Angel shook his head. “Not me. Angelus.”

Spike snorted. “Not me. Angelus,” he said in a gruff impersonation, and then laughed at his own joke.

“Let’s get you back to the motel,” Angel said, putting the stopper on the blood.

Spike grabbed his wrist, stopping him with fingers shaking with anger. “Not Angelus. That’s bleedin’ funny, that is. Top of the line.”

“Let go. We’ll take the blood and whiskey and resume this conversation in private.”

“See… here’s a bone I have to pick with you, sire o’ mine. You been talking years now how there’s Angel, and there’s Angelus, and never the twain shall meet. I was expecting that, mate, expecting an end to Spike. But he’s still here. He’s always going to be here and he’s the same bloke he ever was. Think I would have done that, knowing what a crock you were feeding us all? I wanted to be a better man, damn it, not me. Not me with added insanity.”

Angel glanced at the bar, where Willy was waving to one of his bouncer-beasts. “Fine. You want me to say I’m still Angelus? I’m still Angelus. And Angel. And Liam. Happy?”

Spike squinted, “No. ‘M not happy.” But he let go of Angel’s wrist and threw himself back into the business of lighting his next cigarette.

Angel capped the whiskey and picked up both bottles. “Back to the motel,” he said. “I’ll leave you to finish getting trashed on your own.”

Spike looked up with an expression of fear. “One bottle’s not enough.”

“You’ll make do.”

“No. I won’t.”

Angel rolled his eyes. “My god. You are the neediest nemesis I ever had. Cigarettes. Blood. Whiskey. What’s next? A couple Ramones tapes?”

“Wouldn’t hurt,” Spike said.

Angel grabbed the filthy collar of Spike’s shirt and dragged him out of the booth. He ignored the looming bouncer-beast as he pushed Spike ahead of him out the door. Once they were outside and Spike wasn’t resisting, he thrust the whiskey bottle into Spike’s hands. It was the less expensive of the two and he didn’t quite trust him not to drop what he was given to carry.

Spike looked at the bottle in confusion a moment, then just held it at his side, walking down the road. Silent, again, following. Angel shook his head. How many of the lucid episodes was he going to get? Or were THESE the real moments of lucidity?

Angel watched Spike’s face, flickers of emotions passing by the same as the reflected color of neon and streetlights. Spike was so pale, he picked up any color that fell on him. “I’m sorry, too,” Angel said. “For the things I did to you.”

“No you’re not,” Spike said.

It wasn’t accusatory or even cheeky. It was a tired statement of fact, and it resonated in Angel’s mind exactly the same. No. I’m not.

“You know it’s not the same,” Spike said, waving the bottle of whiskey for all the world like he was three sheets to the wind. “Cut, whip, fuck… it’s dead flesh. Not the same. Do whatever the hell you want to it.”

Angel bit his lip. That was the second time Spike had propositioned him that night. Or was it? He was reading too much into insane ramblings.

Three months? That was an eyeblink for dealing with the guilt of a newly-restored soul. At least as Angel saw it. His own re-souling had been different, of course. He hadn’t even known what was happening to him – there was a period of amnesia, and the physical pain, of course, and then the wailing madness and waking up half a continent away with a mouth full of rat. Angel still didn’t know how much time passed between, save that he had seen the Boxer Rebellion one day and woke up a bum the next, on a city street where people bought newspapers from metal boxes.

Ahead of him, Spike was staggering over the curb up to the motel veranda. Angel jogged a few paces to catch up and steer a compliant Spike to the correct room.

Spike leaned against the wall like a discarded broom while Angel fished out the key and unlocked the door. “I know how it gets easier,” Angel said.

Spike looked at him mutely. Eyes that were drenched in pain and guilt. Changeable blue like the sea. How could anyone, living or dead, have eyes like those?

Angel grabbed Spike’s shoulder and pushed him ahead of him into the room. “I know what made it easier for me,” Angel amended. “To have a purpose. To decide on a path of redemption. Make things better. Maybe, eventually, the lives you save will outweigh the ones you ended. And then you get so you can live with yourself.”

Angel locked the door and returned the room key to its spot on the bedside table. Spike was lying on the bed, on his side, whiskey bottle cradled to his chest like a teddybear, and his eyes said he didn’t believe a word.

Angel sighed and set the bottle of blood down beside the room key. “Promise me you’ll drink this before it spoils. And don’t feel guilty about it, for christ’s sake, it’s a bottle, not a body. Cost me fifty bucks.”

Spike didn’t move or say anything, only watched with those wide open, terribly blue eyes while Angel checked the room to make sure first that he hadn’t left anything and second that there were no convenient ways for a vampire to off himself.

That second was a tough one. Vertical blinds were a suicide weapon to a vampire.

Angel stood at the foot of the bed, looking down at Spike and tapping his fists together. There were too damn many questions he didn’t know the answer to. The soul – yeah, it was there. No question. And also no question that the world in general was safe at last from William the Bloody. But if he left, would Spike still be there when he came back? If he tied Spike to the bed for his own protection, well, what would happen if housekeeping came calling? Would a startled maid throw open the curtains and scream as the man on the bed went from apparent kidnapping victim to a vacuuming nightmare?

He hadn’t been thinking this through. He sat back down and picked up the old beige phone from the nightstand.

Spike just lay there, watching.

Willow picked up on the third ring. Angel sighed a silent thank you it hadn’t been Buffy. “Hey, Will,” he said, and almost grimaced as Spike’s head picked up a bit from the bed. “Listen, it’s Angel. Did Buffy tell you…?”

“Yeah. So, how goes vampire therapy?”

“Not good. I told Buffy I’d come back to the house for the day but now I’m thinking I can’t leave him yet. Could you tell her I’ll see her tomorrow night?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks.” Angel started to move to hang up, but not before Willow gasped,

“I just think it’s really… big. You doing this for him. Despite everything he’s done. I mean, even to you. You know. You’re a real saint, Angel.”

“Thanks,” Angel said again, with gritted teeth. “But I’m not. See you tomorrow.”

As he set the receiver in the cradle, Angel looked up to see Spike had sat up a bit.

“You can go,” Spike said, looking at him steadily. “I won’t try to leave.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.”

Spike picked up the whiskey bottle from where it lay against him, rolled into the depression he made in the mattress. He put it on the bedside table next to the bottle of blood. Laying back down, he said, almost smiling, “Told you I don’t have the guts.”

“You might develop some.” Angel stood and took off his coat.

Spike looked down at himself. He plucked at the loose front of his shirt as though surprised to find it there, then sat up and started undressing.

Angel hadn’t known he was injured. Cuts, burns, welts. Probably self-inflicted. He bit his lip and took the filthy shirt as soon as Spike had wriggled out of it.

Angel washed the shirt – it had once been pretty nice, silk – in the bathroom sink with hand soap. Water ran from it the color of dried blood. No surprise there.

He wrung the garment and draped it over the empty towel rack.

He came back to see Spike draped naked over the bed, a forearm over his eyes.

Suddenly, unaccountably, Angel was angry. He threw the hand-towel he was drying his hands on at the languid vampire, hitting him in the stomach. “Up,” he snarled. “You’re taking a shower. I can smell you from here.”

Spike withdrew his arm, picked up the hand towel, blinking. Angel grabbed his bicep and threw him across the room with all his might.

And was instantly sorry and mortified as Spike picked himself up against the wall and almost crawled into the bathroom.

His back was relatively free from marks – relatively. Angel watched the working of shoulders under skin and was transfixed with a desire to hurt.

He sat down in the chair by the window and drank half of what was left in the bottle of blood. Cool, sweet blood. It couldn’t stop the thoughts, the memories, or the feelings, but it quenched. Not all, but some of his fire, it quenched.

He settled down to sleep in the armchair until Spike had pulled him to the bed with mutterings about being a self-flagilating pouf.

Vampires sleep like the dead. It’s not a cliché. Angel woke in the night confused, and found himself alone with Spike’s dead body. No breath, when the mind isn’t awake to think it needs it. No pulse. No stirring.

Angel bit his lip and pulled the dead flesh closer to his own. No warmth, no excuse, he just wanted to pretend he could comfort a corpse.

And woke again when that corpse pushed and kicked away from him. Woke to see Spike standing against the window-curtains, looking mortified.

“Right,” Angel said, and sighed, rolling over. The sun was still out – setting, but still out. “No touching.”

To his surprise, he felt the mattress depress as Spike settled back down beside him. “Is that what you want?”

“I want you to leave me alone and finish that bottle of blood,” Angel said.

“I’ll do what you want,” Spike said.

It sounded too much like an offer. Angel took his turn at covering his face and feigning sleep. He heard Spike move to the armchair and unstop the bottle.

Smell of blood. No longer quite so fresh, but whole. Angel reminded himself that he’d drunk more than enough and kept himself still, eyes closed. Resting until sunset.

 

Spike was fully clothed when he awoke again. Sitting in the armchair watching the room’s television. Looking exactly like Spike. Angel wiped a hand over his face and went into the bathroom to freshen up. He felt his hair. It was probably tousselled to hell. He wished he’d brought a comb.

“Feeling a touch less, well, touched this morning,” Spike said, not taking his eyes off the television, where a soap opera was in full-swing, dramatic music and everything. “Miss a few months of a show and they go and kill off all the best characters. And who’s this new git Marcy’s seein’? He ain’t half good enough for her.”

Angel ran his fingers under the tap in the bathroom and fussed his hair into shape. Ironic that standing directly in front of a mirror didn’t help any, but he’d learned to do his hair blind long ago. “I’m going to Buffy’s,” Angel said. “As soon as it’s dark again.”

When there was no response he peered back at Spike expectantly. Spike eventually glanced up from the TV. “Eh? You mean you’re going to finally stop talkin’ about it and actually go? Wait ‘til the commercial if you want to get all emotional, yeah?”

Angel dried his hands and crept around to stand beside Spike’s chair. “You watch soap operas?”

“Vampire. Stuck indoors all day. It’s a curse. Shut up ‘til the commercial!”

Angel sat down and tried to figure out what was appealing about the daytime drama. Every scene seemed to be heavy with intrigue and past experiences he was supposed to know about. “Why are they in a museum?”

“That’s Devon’s house. Supposed to be a millionaire, but that’s the best the set decorator could do, yeah? The bird talking with him is Carla. She’s on the lam but doesn’t want anyone to know it.”

“And Devon’s blackmailing her?”

“What? No, you git, he’s helping her out. See, he knows his brother framed her.”

“Is this the guy in the diner?”

Spike rolled his eyes. “No, that’s Carla’s nephew.”

“The actor looks older than her.”

“It’s a soap opera, mate. The women are all ten years younger than they ought to be. Now hush or I will forget I’m all good and virtuous now.”

When the commercial started, Spike got up and sniffed the empty blood-bottle. Grimacing, he took it to the bathroom and rinsed it out.

Angel turned down the volume on the soap commercial. “You really do look better,” he said. “Than last night. Um… saner.”

“Well it’s the first night I’ve spent without one of you lot railing at me. You, Buffy, Dru. Me. Hell, especially me. I’m a right cruel bastard. In comparison, last night was blissful quiet, with just the victims screaming.”

Angel decided to let that go without comment and glanced at the glowing line of sunlight under the drapes, hoping it would hurry up and SET already.

Spike came back into the room wiping a towel over his face. “How’s m’ hair?”

Spike’s hair was adorable, actually, curly, free from its usual relentless gelling, and all fluffed up by the towel. Angel bit his lip and tried to come up with something to say only to laugh when he saw a dark scowl descend on Spike’s features.

“That bad, eh?” Spike said, and ran a hand over his head. “Gotta find where I left my stuff. Least it can’t look as bad as yours, all sticking straight up.”

Angel felt his head absently, biting back his quick defense. Instead, he said, "Life can't be so bad, if you're worried about your hair."

He was rewarded with a smile. "Right."

And they looked at each other in awkward silence, while the television laughed.


End file.
